Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law. That’s what Dan Stevens is about to do as he patrols the beat for Prime Video’s new Robocop TV series. According to Deadline, Stevens will star as Alex Murphy and his cyborg alter ego, Robocop, in a new show from Peter Ocko and Blumhouse Atomic Monster. Stevens is coming aboard the eight-episode series one month after Amazon MGM Studios gave the project a greenlight. Deadline says the new RoboCop series has been kicking around for years.
Dan Stevens Takes the Law into His Own Hands
Written by Ocko, RoboCop revolves around “a giant tech conglomerate that convinces the city to place a powerful robot on its police force – a robot implanted with the consciousness of a beloved, fallen officer, Alex Murphy (Stevens).”
A Fresh Directive for a Cyberpunk Classic
Ahead of today’s announcement, Amazon MGM Studios’ Head of Global TV Peter Friedlander said, “Peter Ocko has crafted a vision that honors the soul of what made the original so enduring while building something entirely fresh and urgent for today.” Meanwhile, James Wan says fans should expect the series to take a more contemporary approach to the source material, with the new RoboCop serving as a commentary on “technology, identity, and who corporations really serve.”
Set in a bleak, near-future Detroit overrun by crime, Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 cyberpunk classic (based on a screenplay by Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner), RoboCop, tells the tragic story of Officer Alex Murphy, who gets brutally executed by a vicious gang led by a maniac named Clarence Boddicker. Enter Omni Consumer Products (OCP)—a mega-corp looking to privatize the police force for massive profits. OCP scoops up Murphy’s remains, stitches him back together with heavy metal and high-tech weaponry, and unleashes him as “RoboCop.” Armed with strict core directives and zero chill, he immediately turns Detroit’s criminal underworld into a targeted target-shooting gallery, becoming an instant media hero while completely unaware of the dead cop buried inside the machine.
Things get personal fast when Murphy’s old memories start glitching through his programming. Teaming up with his former partner, Anne Lewis, he sets out to hunt down the scumbags who killed him. The twist? Boddicker is just a puppet working for Dick Jones, OCP’s corrupt Senior Vice President. Blocked by a secret line of code that prevents him from arresting any OCP executive, Murphy has to fight through heavy artillery, corporate hitmen, and his own programming to expose the bad guys.
Why Dan Stevens Might Be the Upgrade RoboCop Needs
We’re big fans of Dan Stevens in my house (especially my wife), and we can’t wait to see him in the role of Alex Murphy/RoboCop. There are plenty of reasons to hesitate about another RoboCop remake after the trainwreck that was José Padilha’s RoboCop, starring Joel Kinnaman as the manipulated cybercop. Still, Dan Stevens’s attachment to the project gives me a lot of hope for the character’s future.
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